With Malice by Eileen Cook

Note: I received a free copy of With Malice by Eileen Cook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I finally got around to reading With Malice and oh boy did I enjoy it. The last 30% or so I was reading so fast and my heart was pounding because I just wanted answers and I wanted them as fast as possible.

The plot: Jill wakes up in the hospital with no memory of what landed her there. After the course of the novel and a whole bunch of interactions with her doctors, her parents, her lawyer, and the media she discovers that not only did she go to Italy, a trip she can’t remember, but while there she got involved with a young Italian man, got into a huge fight with her best friend Simone, and ended up in a car crash which killed said best friend. And, if that wasn’t already the worst thing possible, she finds out that Simone’s parents, the Italian police force, and a whole slew of people online think she killed Simone on purpose. Only Jill can’t remember any of it.

I liked how the story was played out. We saw most of the story after the accident happened with Jill trying to figure out what could have gone wrong and hearing about most of it from strangers online. We readers also get to see a whole bunch of official police interviews with everyone, little bits of very biased information falling out as the story goes on. And I loved that it proved how different opinions can be. (Like how Simone’s parents insisted Simone was a little goody two shoes while Simone’s friends had evidence to suggest otherwise.)

And then the ending. About 75% through I started to think of how awesome it would be if a certain ending were to happen. And Eileen Cook didn’t disappoint! This was the perfect case of a somewhat unreliable narrator being exactly that, unreliable. And I loved it but don’t want to spoil it for anyone else!